Move over Baby Blue Ivy, the best news Twitter brought me recently was that Tulane law professor Melissa Harris Perry will to be hosting a weekend show on MSNBC starting next month. I'm being serious.

Don't invite me to any brunch before noon from this point forward. Listening to me scream "YES!!!" in response to Harris Perry's guest political commentary on the Rachel Maddow Show, you'd think I was watching the Redskins play, or a firey televangelist.

I ADORE her. I once bought a $50 ticket to a fundraiser for Melissa's husband's mayoral campaign. I didn't not support Mr. Perry or his plans for New Orleans (whatever they may have been) but I was there for other reasons. To shake MHP's hand (yes, I have a nickname for her) and, later, to be able to say we were in the same room.

For as long as I can remember my interest in "real" celebrities has always been below average. I don't have a favorite actor. In waiting rooms, I'll take a trip down memory lane with "Highlights" before scanning "US Weekly." I just recently learned that Lil Wayne and Weezy are the same person. I didn't even get emotionally invested in Jay-Z and Beyonce's little Blue Ivy until today when I heard "Glory" for the first time and might have teared up just a little bit (I am, after all, human).

But the fact that I don't have TMZ in my browser history doesn’t mean I don't know what it's like to rent out disproportionate chunks of my mental space to lives and work of people I've never met and might never meet. I just do it in my own, slightly nerdier way, in which infatuation is based on words and ideas versus beauty or fame.

Write something moving, say something smart (extra points if it's about race or politics or a beautifully crafted memoir) and be someone to whom I can relate at least a little, and I'm pretty much yours. In these imaginary relationships, I don't adhere to "The Rules" -- I commit immediately. I'm always available to read, re-tweet, and rant to anyone who'll listen about how brilliant you are. Basically I'm the super nerd fan every NPR host wishes they had.

These "relationships" are something like "girl crushes" because they're rooted in admiration versus romance. Except it's not that I want to emulate the objects of my infatuation. I just think it'd be nice to absorb a little of their talent, insight or charisma. And, on an even simpler level, I like that they exist.

It can take as little as one essay. Ava DuVernay gave me chills with the poetry of an essay on "Watch the Throne." Dream Hampton hooked me with a series of thoughtful tweets. Rachel Maddow slowly seduced me with multiple evenings of on-point snark during the run-up to the 2008 election. I was hooked up with The Atlantic's Ta-Nahesi Coates by a friend, on a blind date with his blog, and fell fast. I gave that fling the seal of legitimacy by subscribing.

I like to think this makes me the exact opposite of a hater. Instead of resenting those who currently outpace me in talent or fame or success, I let them give me energy. But it's important to note that I don't like them instead of liking myself. I'm both grateful and excited for the little reminders they offer me about my own potential.

My craving for contact with these writers and thinkers is charged with the same energy that fueled crushes of the middle school variety. Back then, two friends and I were in love with Billy Joe Armstrong, the scrawny lead singer of Green Day. We heard that he'd visited Amoeba Records in Berkeley, so we went in there and touched everything on the theory that he must have touched something, so if we ran our fingers over every single row of records we'd find real intimacy in doing what he'd just done.

In law school, when I first came in contact with a big shot professor whose public profile and books put her at the top of my nerd crush list, I overcame my star-struck nerves and sought her out to become a teaching assistant. Two years later, when she cited a paper I wrote in one of her law review articles, it was like a grown up, academic, record-store-touch.

I doubt I'll ever get to know some of the people on my list personally. Like Joan Didion, or even author Anne Lamott -- who actually lives in my hometown and drives around in a little VW bug. I thought it'd advance our relationship if she noticed me waving out the window that one time I made my mom speed down the road so we could pull up next to her at a red light. It did not. I'll just have to be satisfied with occasional g-chats with a friend who shares my obsession ("Do you think she still gets writer's block, like for real for real? Do you think she's nice?")

More often, these days, the people whose work hooks me are close enough to be accessed through the miracles of the Internet. I knew both Helena and J.F. Mceachin's words before I knew them. Now, I only remember when someone asks that the explanation for "How did you meet?" is "She wrote this thing and, um, I got in touch with her. "

The added bonus of nerd-crushes-turned-friends is they can remove one degree of separation from current nerd crushes.

"Word on the Twitter streets is that you're hanging out with REBECCA WALKER tonight!! Why did I not know this??" I texted Helena last year. I think I got an "LOL, sorry. We're in Baltimore." Progress? Maybe.

According to Feng Shui or Oprah, or some self help book I read, I'm supposed to make a vision board with pictures of all these "helpful people" (or "nerdy stalking targets" – take your pick) and put it in some particular corner of my home, visualizing them offering guidance for my of career and personal development. But, for some reason, that crosses the creepy line for me. And anyway, something tells me they're already "offering guidance."

So what about you guys? Any smarty pants on your Celebs to Make Out With list, which in nerd fan speak translates to something like Celebs to Go Hear Give A Lecture list?

Every year, right after Thanksgiving, I start listening to Luther Vandross' "This is Christmas" album.

The 10-track combination of classic songs like "O Come All Ye Faithful" and the slightly-less-timeless "Mistletoe Jam" calls up every warm and giddy, snow-covered and gingerbread-crusted thing about the holidays for me.

But what, exactly, does "everything about the holidays" mean? I can't tell you. Because if a holiday tradition is something you can count on doing every year, this semi-cheesy, soulful Christmas album is just about the only one I have. I'm tradition-less.

I've listened to "This is Christmas" (a tape, then a CD, now on iTunes) for the past 16 seasons. Nothing else about the holidays has ever been that consistent for me. Not even close.

My one holiday ritual started when I ended up with the album at my hometown's Multiracial Families group's white elephant holiday gift exchange in 1995. Exactly.

At this informal gathering of mostly white moms and their half-black kids (with the exception of the group's organizers, an Italian and Filipino family), after the gifts were exchanged, beige little ones of all ages ate cookies while the adults presumably talked about prejudice or our hair.

It'd be fun to write that that event, where I picked my gift from among all the other under-$20 miscellany, was a staple of my childhood and a touchstone of my childhood holiday memories.

But, not so much.

When it came to the multicultural meet-up, I think my mom and I went all of twice. The year my dad was assigned to take me we had a hard time finding the house, gave up, and went to TGI Fridays in Oakland's Jack London Square instead. My dad said there would be plenty of "multiculturalism."

This was pretty typical of the fleeting holiday routines in my life: I might do the something for a year or two years, and it might even feel like it would stick. But, inevitably, family dynamics, priorities, logistics and living situations changed, and it was on to the next way of celebrating. This was tough for a kid who was really into being -- or at least appearing -- "normal."

I knew I couldn't go back and give myself an easily pronounceable first name or a single last name (both free of punctuation and symbols). I couldn't give myself a single, identifiable race. Or a career I could name for my dad. But I still let myself lust after routines. Ideally, these would resemble what people did on TV, or even better, the average of what "everyone else" did.

I had one friend whose entire family always woke up at 5 AM Christmas morning to exchange gifts, a tradition that persisted years after all the children had grown out of footie pajamas. Another's had an enviably predictable Christmas itinerary involving frittatas, jazz in the background, Lutheran church, and both of her divorced parents under one roof for one day out of the year.

The eight predictable nights of Hannukah intrigued me so much that I once asked my mother if we could become Jewish so I could tap into that. (She didn't exactly say no, but dampened my enthusiasm with the warning that it would involve lots of classes, and eventually a bat-mitzvah, where I'd have to overcome my fear of public speaking to get up in front of a group and recite things.)

But in the end, for me and my mom, the nature of our holiday celebrations was anyone's guess. While vaguely grounded in family and food, little else was consistent.

For a period of time when "cool" cousin Sara was dating a Jamaican artist, Bob Marley played in the background of most holiday events in a sincere but perhaps overzealous attempt at being welcoming. The boyfriend came with a band/entourage, so I remember guys with guitars in our apartment's living room, people sitting on cushions on the floor with their turkey, and a lot of "walks around the neighborhood" where guests came back smelling funny and asking if there was any more pie.

Other years, there were walks on foggy beaches and, once, I think, a picnic on the floor. We volunteered at Glide Memorial church. There was a winter solstice meal combined with psychic readings around the dining table of a woman who lived in our apartment building.

When we lived with another single mom and her kids, we all got the same slippers and stocking stuffers, and I was tickled by the idea that it was as if we were not just housemates, but real siblings.

Our holiday feasts were as unpredictable as the company. One year, the main course was an enormous mound of couscous. In others, my father is known to throw seafood on the grill when he gets into the spirit. When I was 16, my mom decided she needed a signature holiday dish and came up with sweet potato spoon bread. To my younger cousins who've had it for many Christmases, it's a winter essential. To me, it's the weird thing she clipped out of Gourmet magazine.

Gifts, too, are done haphazardly. Once, last-minute logistics found my dad at my mother's family's gathering, handing out scarves and purses that he made no claim to have purchased but said he "acquired" through a "friend in the industry."

Another year, my mom got my aunt a mug that she'd left at our house, beautifully wrapped up and returned. Her gifts to me have often been revealed before Christmas, always with the caveat, "It's not much," even when it is. And when it comes to things like sweater dress treasures unearthed at Ross or Marshall's she can never resist announcing the "COMPARE TO" price before I even have a chance to try them on.

With these unpredictable, unconventional, and inconsistent celebrations, I used to think I was missing out. But, maybe not.

After all, the fact that my favorite holiday album makes me feel giddy versus melancholy says that texture over tradition might not be a losing formula. Maybe it's not a crisis that "This is Christmas" doesn't call up images of a grandmother in an apron or carols around a piano, but rather, happy memories attached to no particular time or place.

Memories like the one year we went to midnight mass because I'd gotten very into being Catholic (basically I wanted to have an answer when people asked what religion I was). My mom sang the hymns and Christmas carols in a ridiculous falsetto and sent me into a trembling laughing fit that we still recall every time we hear Ave Maria.

Say "Christmas lights" and the two of us will laugh, to this day, about the way we used to just about kill each other over joint efforts at manual labor. Those were the years when she going through menopause and I was an obnoxious teenager.

My cousins and aunts still have their gifts from the year my dad showed up and played Santa Claus, and they tell me, whether it's in person or over the phone, "I'm wearing the scarf I got from your father! (Where did he get that stuff, anyway?)"

This Christmas, my mom's coming out from California to go with me to my boyfriend's family's house. What we lack in the tradition department, they have in abundance.

She wants to make her "signature" sweet potato spoon bread. She's bringing a few things for me, but they're "not much." And I'm sure I'll know what they are before Christmas comes. I have every intention of listening to my favorite Christmas album on the drive down. Besides that, this year's celebration will be something completely different, and so for me, totally traditional.

Every time I visit my grandmother, I'm pretty sure it will be the last. Mostly because that's what she tells me. Last week, my attempts at holiday planning were shut down with, "Oh, Thanksgiving? I don't think I'll be around then."Since my grandmother doesn't go outside anymore I know she's not talking about going on one of the cruises she used to take out loans to afford. She's talking about dying.Grandma Dessie is 95. Even though she's (amazingly) not ill and famously spunky, her eyes and ears are failing. And despite the matter of fact way in which she talks about her own death -- I told the funeral director but I'm telling you, too as backup. No bangs. I do. Not. Want. Bangs. -- I know she's scared.The fear isn't so much about when or how she'll die, but about the loneliness and fear she'll face in the meantime -- shuffling from the twin-sized bed to the fluorescently lit bathroom to the miniature kitchen of her tiny, immaculate seniors' complex aparment. Sitting up at night with eyes too weak to read, straining to hear "young people who always talk too fast" on the phone, and making biweekly trips to bingo.Our relationship was formed long-distance during my California childhood, thanks to one of the only areas in which my mom was inflexible: For every $5 bill nestled in an ornate Halloween, Easter, and St Patrick's Day card I received, I had to send a thank-you note to my grandmother in Boston. Grandma Dessie's delighted phone calls in response taught me something about my own power to deliver joy.Later, as a law student living just a subway ride away, I got to know my grandmother's habits close-up: Her favorite priest on Catholic TV is Father Reed. She's always hot, except from the calves down, which is why she always has a window open but wears legwarmers and heats up her socks. I'd drive her car on our errands whenever it was too bright or too rainy or too late.When I moved away, I'd visit for long weekends. I approached our time together the same way I did my legal work. How many hours could I bill to dutiful granddaughter time between Friday and Sunday? How many tasks could I check off the list? How could I "add value" for my sweet, demanding and often confused client? When I left for Logan Airport, would her problems be solved? They never were. I'd hop back on the Delta Shuttle after those well-intended missions feeling useless.

During my visits, Granda Dessie would break my heart with stories of subsisting on the frozen food she ate when she lost her confidence in the kitchen, but then forbid me from cooking, fretting that I'd cause a fire. I'd sit down determined to tackle the mail that confused her. Two hours later I'd be exasperated, when under her instruction, I realized I had done nothing but read aloud -- multiple times -- a pile of requests for donations from the Jewish Christian Children's Network and ancient statements from Comcast. Then I'd just move the mail pile from one basket to another because she wouldn't let me throw anything out.I felt useless because my efforts to make things better weren't fixing her life and worse, might be hurting her. If she sensed I was annoyed with her endless concerns and our unproductive weekends, she'd apologize, saying, "I'm such a terrible old lady," as her eyes filled up with tears.Then came the most difficult few months of my otherwise pretty easy 30 years in the form of a breakup. The details are unimportant -- just know that it was profoundly heartbreaking but also totally unoriginal.My friends sprung into action. Their comfort came in a patchwork of advice that I mostly didn't implement and pep talks that didn't pep me up. I got an unsolicited recipe for a "Whole Foods antidepressant vitamin cocktail" (B12, St John's Wort and Vitamin E). One friend gave me a bright blue T-shirt that read, "When life gives you lemons, keep 'em – because hey, free lemons!" My roommate offered me concealer for my puffy eyes instead of judgement when I reneged on promises not to backslide.Emails and text messages punctuated workdays that otherwise seemed to blur together: "My heart is breaking for you," read one. "You're one of the most resilient people I know," read another. I was surprised and amused to be helped by even the most unhelpful suggestions: "Would wearing a fun dress and bright-colored scarf cheer you up?" One friend forwarded me a copy of Desiderata and insisted repeatedly that I could call her at any time. "Even at 4 AM," she always added.

I took her literally and called at about 3:45 A.M. with a rambling story of unreturned texts and the terrible, detached way his voice sounded on the phone. She mumbled, barely awake, but resolute, clearly willing to hop out of bed, "Do you want to do a drive-by?" Thanks to a remaining ounce of sanity, I declined. I fell asleep as the sun came up. Nothing was better in my relationship, but I did know for sure that I wasn't alone.My grandmother, who has lost groups of friends each decade, is not afraid of being alone in the frivolous "I don't want to break up with my boyfriend before my birthday" sense that I was. Instead, she faces being mostly by herself and increasingly scared, every day until she dies.My young adult angst can't compare to that, but thanks to the way my friends responded to my pain, I understand something now about how being there for someone doesn't require solving their problems. Every single one of my friends knew they couldn't fix my relationship and they didn't try. They didn't tell me to stop being sad or force me to acknowledge that things would be okay. They didn't require any action of me. So now I get that nothing I do will make Grandma Dessie 84 again (she says she'd kill for that), less isolated or physically stronger. Because of the way my friends were simply there for me, I know how to be there for her.

Now when I visit my grandmother, it's a little different. I make no effort to erase her anxiety. I don't waste any of our precious time together explaining that I walk outside all the time in DC and have never been raped or kidnapped. She still asks if I'm warm enough six or seven times, and if I'm anorexic. I hug her and tell her I promise I'm not -- she says, "I worry so much, I think you're perfect, I don't want you to gain or lose a pound while you're here." Instead of scratching off a list of tasks, I sit with her for an hour after each meal, talking about her childhood, who got a blackout at Bingo last Wednesday, and even the forbidden bangs. I lie on my stomach on her bed so our faces are close, listening to her stories, and asking her questions. Sometimes she hears and answers, and sometimes she just keeps talking. She points at piles of papers and I pick them up, read them out loud, put them down, and do the same the next day.And now, when she tells me she might not be there for my next visit, I try not to argue with her or tell her she's being unreasonable. I just remind her that when I leave, she can call me any time. Even at 4 AM.

In most areas of life, I'm practical, bordering on being a cynic. I don't believe in ghosts and don't fret if an umbrella pops open inside. I quit being Catholic when I realized I was actually supposed to believe all the "body and blood of Christ" and Heaven and Hell stuff.

I over-prepare for everything. If I want to lose weight, I rely on the old calories in/calories out approach, not those vibrating ab belts from infomercials.

But, every once in a while, I PayPal as much as most women spend on a new pair of shoes to a Jaycee, aka "Miss Energy Healer" (a law school classmate, turned consultant to hip-hop artists, turned certified energy healer and Reiki master), and she works her magic on me I while sleep.

Seriously. My aura, my chakras, my vibrations, all that. There's no touching, even: She does the "distance healing" from her home in LA, and e-mails a lengthy report on my spiritual status by the time I wake up in the morning. I read it in on my phone between morning work emails and the day's headlines.

I swear I'm not crazy. A good-sized handful of my friends do the same. These women, I might add, are totally normal people: professionals who go to the gym and vote and volunteer and chitchat about how totally ridiculous that last episode of "Basketball Wives" was.

The only way you might be able to distinguish us from our peers who get their religion from Sunday service (or happy hour, whatever) is by the crystals some of us wear around our necks. Jaycee sells them on the side.

They do things, energetically speaking. Don't ask me to explain. A couple of girls stick them in their bras, because they don't exactly look great with a lot of outfits (Yes, that's mine in my bio photo. Give me a break, I was wearing green! It matched . . . kind of.)

We call her our "guru" and laugh, because, well, we live in the world. And we know this is unconventional, on a whole different level from talking about astrology signs or subscribing to a daily e-tarot reading (Guilty). But we're not exactly kidding.

One woman -- a snarky PhD candidate -- posted on Facebook, "Jaycee is the TRUTH." A bunch of our fellow "Jaycee groupies" liked it. Another friend, who oozes poise and professionalism, says she initially sought out Jaycee's services because she "knew she wasn't a crazy delusional liar" and was willing to try anything to get her work life in order. She attributes a successful career transition to some healings a few years ago, and she spoke for most of us when she summed up her sentiments about skeptics: "Eh, f--k 'em."

Yet another asked me to omit her name from this piece because of "side-eye reactions from non-believers (aka losers)."

Here's how it works: Jaycee asks you about your "intention," which, in our cases, usually involve the trifecta of young women's issues: career, love, and beauty (I want a satisfying job; I want to get over this jackass once and for all; Why the hell am I breaking out at 30 years old?) Then you go to sleep.

The next morning, you wake up to the cheery and somewhat rambling e-mail in which Jaycee talks about what she "picked up on," what "came through," and what she worked on and "moved." It's eerily accurate. You're not an idiot, so you compare notes with your friends to make sure this isn't some copy and paste scam. It's not.

You begin to feel better. You think. You doubt. But no, you really do. That very morning, and then more in the coming weeks. She checks on you, asks if you need any "adjustments." She doesn't request payment until you hassle her a couple of times about how much you owe. Her emails burst with affirmations and "LOL"s and include "drink lots of water!" and always wrap up with "sending lots of positive energy your way!"

Somehow, it helps that Jaycee isn't a cliche. She adores Jay-Z. She goes to Vegas. She, like many in my group of friends, was once a miserable corporate lawyer who had to figure out what she wanted to do with her life.

The woman is certainly not scamming us for the money: She 's somehow accumulated celebrity clients, and the Facebook pictures and Twitter feed to prove it. They undoubtedly pay her more than our "friend" rate (basically, the amount you fork over if you've never been featured in US Weekly).

Her favorite healing story is about when she rushed to the emergency room to save the leg of a popular rapper's manager who was shot by mistake. I know, I know. I wouldn't believe it either if she didn't have pictures of herself with the Kardashians, smudging their living room in a brown maxi dress, or bunned up with a hip-hop artist at her birthday party. She treats these things as casually as her good-natured blogs and facebook statuses that overflow into the comments about her green smoothies, her past heartbreaks and the Universe's sense of humor.

With vastly different spiritual backgrounds, my friends and I are simultaneously believers and tickled that we're believers. My mom's been "putting a white light around" me when I travel for as long as I can remember, and my grandmother encourages me to pray to Saint Anthony when I misplace my keys or phone (which I do only as a last resort, so it always seems like it works).

Another friend meditates and says she's always been open to the possibility of spiritual healing but is skeptical of organized religion. One of the girls who hides her crystal in her bra attends a Baptist church. Another one rolls her eyes and complains that she has to "Jesus-fy" her house when her mom comes to visit.

One member of our group, who's decided to get a yearly healing around her birthday, was raised by such a stark atheist that her first date screening topics include (in addition to the usual, "Have you ever been to jail?" "Are you married?" and "Have you ever slept with a man?"), "Do you go to church?" The correct answer would be no.

But her only concern about Jaycee's services was, "I was scared because I think some of you guys had thrown up the morning after?? I didn't want that to happen to me!" Yes, two of us did in fact vomit the morning after having Jaycee "cut cords" with guys who were no good for us. We share stories like this in hushed, awed tones.

Remember when Jaycee detected and called out the not-exactly-prescribed pills taken to focus during a work all-nighter?

Remember when she inexplicably knew about the way so-and-so had a panic attack at a wedding during the vows, and called her to discuss her fear of commitment, and did a healing, and now so-and-so is engaged?

There's no control group here. Quite possibly, we'd all be in a better place now than we were before our long-distance healings, even without any assistance. I wouldn't push this service on anyone because I certainly can't prove that it works, and I don't get into arguments I can't win.

But when I PayPal my fee over to Miss Energy Healer's account, I do it gladly. Thankfully, even. Life's big and small dramas (even they amount, in the grand scheme of things, to no more than yuppie problems) call for some hope and a little magic, whether it's from some Steve Harvey book on how to date like a man, antidepressants or one of those vibrating ab belts.

As long I have my club-hopping, crystal-dispensing, LOL-ing long-distance spiritual guru, just an e-mail away, I don't think I'll need any of the above. And that, I'm less embarrassed all the time to admit, is worth it.

"Take your time with dating," my friend said in a relationship advice voicemail last week, "I mean, remember how felt like I'd never get over Ken, and then, everything changed when I met The Dentist?"

"The Dentist" was not actually a dentist, but a dental student, who owned the condo below hers, played tennis, and kept up impressively with her sarcastic banter. But his dating nickname brought it all back: the healing, excitement, and power-couple potential he represented during that summer six years ago, and the heightened concern with morning tooth-brushing she dealt with during the romance.

He had a real name, of course. It was French, pretentious and unpronounceable. We used it only during the few hot weeks between the time the relationship was brand new and when it was over, when they were fantasizing about drilling a hole in her floor and installing a staircase to connect their units. I can't remember it.

The Dentist, The Poet, Soccer Guy: The names my friends and I assign to the not-quite-boyfriends who move in and out of our lives are created as shorthand. They simplify gossip shared over brunch, in distracted workday g-chats, and in "quick, fill me in on your life" (meaning, unless you've had a major health crisis or been laid off, the men in it) phone calls.

But they're more than practical. The detachment a nickname offers prods us to remember that this -- growing up, dating, and yes, even heartbreak -- is all part of a story in which we're the main characters and, realistically, most of the men we interact with are really just extras whose names won't even end up in the final credits.

Calling someone The Security Guard or The Pretty Boy makes life feel more "Seinfeld" or "Sex and the City" than "Single Ladies." It's clearer all the time that we don't control much when it comes to love. But the language we chose to discuss it can provide some emotional organization and perspective in this arena where, if we're not careful, both can be scarce.

Often these names aren't creative or clever. No one chuckles when I reference The College Crush, but everyone knows who I'm talking about. And many that have animated our discussions over the years simply name an occupation (The Blogger; The Bike Pro), or where the man was first encountered (PG County Dude; Birthday Party Guy). Conan O'Brien isn't the most creative reference to a tall redhead, but the point isn't to be witty. It's to manage your own story.

Some of them force us to recall with every reference why a romantic interest is a bad idea: Married Guy, Separated Guy, Depressed Guy, and Work-Guy-Whose-Name-We-Can't-Say-Out-Loud. Others remind us why we let someone go.

My friend who replaced one Dan with another, much more compatible one, who shared her love for dancing, began referring to the ex as Daniel #1. The cold addition of a numeral to his full name perfectly conjured his stiff, unemotional outlook, and how he'd ruined many a night out by "trying to be a scientist about salsa."

Some, like Cucumber (use your imagination) add a laugh track to the melodrama of relationships. Gay Hankie's sexuality wasn't actually in question, but his name referred to the way he weighed down his slim frame with diamond jewelry, coveted the euro swim trunks on the cover of GQ, and wore a bright pink satin pocket square like a miniature security blanket. Not to mention, "I've had another failed relationship, and meanwhile, Gay Hankie got engaged," is just more satisfying than the same sentence referring to him as, "that clotheshorse I went out with few times last year."

When the nicknames get too long, they get initials for ease of use. MCM stood for Male Companion Matt, a name that suggested a particular guy's limited utility in one friend's life. BCK was short for Boot Camp Kyle, the trainer. There was no relation to the serial killer of the similar initials, but the sociopath association seemed did seem fitting as time went on.

There are some we'd never dare to utter in front of their subjects -- although they aren't mean-spirited (after all, we're dating these people): Short Guy. Old Guy. Fifty [years of age]. A friend and I once made a conscious effort to stop referring to her flirtatious colleague as White Guy ("God, why do I call him that? You know I'd die if he were referring to me as Black Girl," she kept fretting).

Caucasian Guy was a PC flop. Tattoo Guy didn't stick either. Finally, the combination of edgy body art and his chin-length black hair let us settle on The Vampire, right around the time she lost interest. A 23-year old-who took himself quite seriously was peeved when someone slipped up referred to him by his dating nickname -- The Baby -- after a couple of glasses of champagne at a Christmas party.

It's my understanding that men use dating nicknames, too. I once asked a boyfriend what mine had been in the beginning of our courtship and, to my dismay; it was not Adorable Curly Haired Girl, or Probably The One, but, simply, The Lawyer. His, I was embarrassed to admit, had been "Towel Guy."

The reference was to the decision he made to bring one, tucked into shorts, to a first date at a white-tablecloth restaurant, explaining with a shrug, "I sweat a lot." When it became clear he'd be around for a while and (I'd concluded that being "one quarter thug" was endearing rather than embarrassing), I tried to retrain my friends to refer to him by his occupation instead. But I'll never outlive the jokes about white terrycloth.

When someone is safe, when some of the walls come down, and when hope and excitement begin to beat cynicism and detachment in another round of the game love, the nicknames outlive their use. Recently a friend referenced "Ron" and I didn't know who she was talking about until it clicked that this was the Wine Bar Guy.

"You realize," I told her, "that we're calling him by his name now. This must be serious. "